Gluctoast's Blog

okay! starting off from the color page. I adore this caption: “towards an as-yet-unmet spring.” hirano’s gaze, trained not just at kagi’s lips, but his brilliant smile (“…man, that sun is dazzling today…” – ch 12, hirano to kagiura), and the pink flush to his face—altogether it captures the image of love in bloom. that burgeoning newness is right in line with the spring season, and an “as-yet-unmet spring” suggests that while we’re not quite there yet (at the point of a realization of love), it is something that will be happening.

(side note: I will be using the mangadex scanlations as my main reference point here, but I have heard that it might be good to look at some alternate translations regarding ch 28 and 29, so I’ll be doing so when I get there)

now to discuss page one. hanzawa and ichinose are like catnip so me so I have a lot of words about this moment. to start, I think it’s so fascinating that both hanzawa & ichinose ascribe a sense of “home” to the dorm (and thus feel homesickness), even though, as hirano points out, the dorm isn’t actually their home. to me this illuminates a lot about hanzawa and ichinose’s characters, particularly the reasons as to why they were dorm heads.

both hanzawa and ichinose are presumably here for studying reasons—ichinose will get caught up in video games if he goes home (ch 23b, hirano to kagiura), and hanzawa’s household is too busy and chaotic to study at (ch 33.7, sasaki to miyano)—but the dorm is more than just a study space to them. after all, being dorm head requires an extra level of connection to the dorm… a connection that I would argue, for them, stems from a level of disconnection with their actual homes.

at home, hanzawa’s “maa-kun,” and his older brother masaomi will start asking him questions about his love life, and I imagine it’s often enough since he does it in public, and asks if miyano’s his boyfriend without skipping a beat (ch 28, sasaki to miyano). in this same chapter, hanzawa does not… react well, to romance. he’s still grappling with the lasting memory of his mother’s relief when he said he was straight. at home, hanzawa’s not in control. I think he’s internalized the idea that he’s not allowed to display any kind of queerness, and while that may still be true to an extent within the confines of the dorm, the situation is different. here, he’s the dorm head, he’s the captain of the ping pong team, president of the disciplinary club… his hair is dyed black, like a “good student.” he can control, to a larger extent, the way he’s perceived, and has more freedom of action.

as ogasawara suggests in the second anime guidebook, “ah, but… you’ve been here for three years, so it’s not quite home, but… there’s still an attachment?” and he’s right! I don’t think hanzawa dreads his home, but I think that he was able to build a new feeling of stability during his time at school and in the dorm, and having that is really precious to him. there’s reason he then asks ogasawara to attend his university, and then starts complaining about how hirano moved out of the dorm as soon as he was able.

(side note: that’s a really fun look into the future, isn’t it? that the hirano who’s so deeply missing kagiura in this chapter moved out as soon as it was possible to do so. perhaps that’s just another aspect of his ruthless kind of bluntness, but I think the fact that it happened means that he and kagiura are at a stable place. also, this scene ends with him deciding to drop by the dorm, so clearly there’s someone he wants to see…)

we don’t know much about ichinose’s home life, but I’d pin him as a bit introverted. I might be making this conclusion based off the fact that he’s wearing glasses in a flashback we see of him. but also like… he plays video games. he gets bad stomach cramps and some of them are anxiety-induced. he gets really shy around the dorm manager, who he does have a crush on, but also I think he’s just that type of person. speaking of the dorm manager, he and ichinose are chatting even before hirano or hanzawa show up, so I’d suspect a part of his homesickness is missing the dorm manager, too. there’s a fun tension to this situation… he’s graduating, and his crush probably feels pretty useless, but he nonetheless wants to chase that pleasure. it’s not an outward or direct expression of queerness, but I like to imagine that ichinose, too, feels more in control when he’s in the dorm, feels more like he can be a little truer to himself.

that distance from your closest judgements—the ones coming from you family—is something I like to think that ichinose and hanzawa cherish.

speaking of ichinose and hanzawa, I love this chapter cover. the angle reminds me of a security camera? hirano’s stares at it with a blank kind of surprise, but hanzawa and ichinose both look like they’re making deliberate eye contact. I think the difference between them is representative to how those three interact with the idea of public perception and persona… that being, hirano doesn’t do it at all, while hanzawa and ichinose are hyper aware of it, even though their approaches and responses differ.

(side note: I’m aware that a lot of what I say regarding ichinose is speculation. I just have a lot of headcanons about him. as a shameless self plug I will say that that you should read violeta fantasy)

next we have ichinose & hirano discussing kagiura, and not only does hirano look glum when talking about how he and kagiura rarely get to see each other, he wears the fondest smile I’ve ever seen when he calls kagiura “one of a kind.” I love how bright that specific page looks—it’s like when hirano’s around kagiura, he, too, is dazzling. I also really love the choice of words here, those being “one of a kind.” it might be a translation liberty, but I think it just emphasizes the way that kagiura is a unique existence to hirano. even if he’s not special in the romantic sense, he is so obviously special to hirano. I love that hirano calls him “one of a kind” as he’s specifically recalling the way kagiura in ch 26 said that being with him, like this, is his favorite part of the day. here, reflecting on that moment, hirano gets to appreciate and love the way that kagiura loves him, and it just leaves him soft and pleased. it’s nice to see.

the next scene I want to discuss is the section where kagiura catches hirano & hanzawa Being Friends. I am such a fan of this because I love seeing hirano and hanzawa’s friendship. on hanzawa’s character profile for the knight of sub-characters popularity poll, it’s mentioned that he’s often seen with hirano, and then in the snapshot of his daily life that we got for his 2024 birthday, hirano’s again mentioned as his friend… they go to the same university! hirano asked him for advice on how to approach kagi-kun! sure, part of that was because hanzawa was the dorm head, but a lot of it was because they’re just friends. it’s fascinating to see how badly kagiura reacts to this, and the way he bitterly thinks, hirano-san only lets me touch him for 10 seconds a day…

kagi. I love you. but you made that rule up. you are also forgetting that hirano keeps claiming he’s got his own 10 seconds, too. this touch constraint is so fascinating because kagiura and hirano would’ve casually touched all the time, before this. but ever since having a proper realization of his Feelings, kagiura’s essentially… deprived himself of touch, by choice? because as they stand, even if hirano’s Fine with it, because he won’t register it as romantic, kagiura can’t touch him with romantic intention and have him not know. as he thinks right after his bitter thought, it’s not even the same kind of touching. it would cross some kind of line that he’s made up. I love this kid’s issues. he’s really so good… but I think he worries a lot about not being good, especially towards the guy he loves so much.

(side note: in this section we also flash back to the hanzawa homophobia allegations, which. I’d love to write up a post abt this whole deal just bc 1) we’re all aware that hanzawa’s not Actually Homophobic, yes? and 2) I find it so fun to introspect and speculate about his relationship to queerness, and 3) can we talk about how strange yashiro is? like. forget hanzawa shutting down that play-acted kabedon in ch 24. what kind of person just bluntly says, “everyone knows he can’t stand when two guys do that kind of stuff together” to a guy who clearly… does not know that? hanzawa can’t be looking that actively homophobic, if kagiura’s never noticed it before. making that statement says just as much about yashiro, then, as it does about hanzawa.)

now of course I have to talk the moment where kagiura realizes that hirano misses them hanging out. I’ll take this moment to note that hirano missing him, and hirano wanting to study with him, are all great continuing repudiations of the suggestion that ichinose gave early on: that he might focus better, without kagiura as his roommate. that maybe they’d do best, working hard individually. I think this was part of what separated them in the adult au, but time and time again, hirano to kagiura shows that they make each other better, stronger people. we kind of knew all of this, though. why, then, does hirano go 0 to 100 red, the moment that kagiura realizes this fact?

well. this… actually isn’t the first time, isn’t it? back in ch 22, hirano’s missing kagiura, and recalls what miyano was rambling about in his BL: “he thinks about how much he wants to see the person he’s in love with, and with the best timing ever, he finds himself embraced, and his heart starts pounding…”

then, too, his face turns totally red. and, crucially: his heart starts to race.

heart racing, in this context, is a signifier of love. hirano had pointed out that you can just have your heart race when you’re surprised, and being hugged could do that naturally, but now his heart has started jackrabbiting when there’s no one there to touch him. how to make sense of this feeling?

(he’d also conveniently tuned out the part where miyano said that in some cases there wasn’t any heart racing because the couple was already like family. I think family is a really key word in how exactly kagiura loves hirano. it really is a desire not just for love, but cohabitation.)

miyano says some other stuff in his BL spiel, too. I’d like to point to his earlier impassioned cry of, “you should just try getting embraced by a tall puppy-dog seme, have your heart start racing, and realize ‘wow…is this love?!’!!!”

sounds a little similar to… oh, what’s happening right now in ch 27, doesn’t it?

sasaki to miyano plays a lot with BL tropes, particularly in the ways that its fiction interacts with the reality of miyano’s life. hirano to kagiura does this to a lesser extent, but the theme is still clearly present—in ch 13, miyano tells hirano that he “can’t recognize an iota of BL development potential,” and hirano thinks for a moment that he’s talking about him and kagi-kun before he decides it had nothing to do with their situation.

so. what we’re going to see in ch 28, I suspect, is not going to be a sudden ‘wow…is this love?!’ moment. I’d love to say I’ve made this prediction just from sheer analysis alone, and while I think harusono sensei’s general trend of playing with BL tropes and expectations makes this a pretty easy prediction, I also just… have an inkling or two about what ch 28 is about. no clue about ch 29, but I know that neither of them are going to end with hirano being “wow, I’m totally in love with kagi,” because if it did, I think my tumblr dashboard would’ve exploded.

before I get into it, I thought I’d address the elephant in the room: the translation that’s available on mangadex is a little… contentious. for this chapter, I consulted this twitter thread that goes into the mangadex translation and offers some alternative takes and translations. personally, this alternate translation is the version I prefer, so it’s what I’m going to be quoting from for my analysis, but I won’t really be doing any kind of translation comparison here, since I have the feeling it’s likely already been discussed, and for this post I’d like to focus on my actual thoughts as it pertains to the text. I just thought I’d put all of this upfront so it’s clear what I’m quoting later on.

with that settled… let’s start by looking at the first page! we open with heavy rain, which offers the whole chapter a little bit of a moodier vibe. I am, of course, delighted to see ichinose. it’s really lovely to see him hanging out in the dorm even after he’s graduated, because it, again, emphasizes the sense of homesickness he has about this place, but it also adds some interesting context to his relationship with the dorm manager? in ch 22 of hirano to kagiura, upon seeing hirano and kagiura playing basketball and studying together, ichinose flashes to an image the dorm manager and thinks, …they’ve still got a year left together. lucky stiffs. coupling that with what he says in ch 23b—“I always just feel… impatient” and “this game I really love (…) had this thing about how if you never move on, then it’s all been a waste”—I have some conclusions to draw.

in ch 23b we see that ichinose and kagiura have vastly differing hunger patterns. kagiura’s got a crazy fast metabolism and seems to always be slightly hungry. he stops studying to go to dinner, immediately. on the other hand, ichinose is pretty bad about listening to his own body, and ends up skipping dinner if he doesn’t have an alarm to keep him on track. if we think of hunger as a kind of desire, and extrapolate that to each character, it suggests that while kagiura’s this almost bottomless pit of desire, who can’t ignore or push down his yearning, because he’s too damn obvious (ch 8, hirano to kagiura), ichinose is the type to ignore or move past his own desires. that’s how his impatience expresses himself—he’s so focused on his goal, so impatient about moving on, moving forward, that he’s not good at focusing on himself.

this is perhaps… not the healthiest of ways to live. ichinose gets stomach cramps from just food, sure (ch 20.5, hirano to kagiura), but it’s clear that at least some of his stomach pains are stress-related, too (ch 15.5, hirano to kagiura). and, well. I imagine that having an unrequited crush and grappling with that unexpressed queerness would not only incite its own kind of stress, it would be something that ichinose would love to move on from and ignore. thus far, a lot of the interactions we’ve seen between ichinose and the dorm manager have been tumultuous. as we see in the chapters cited above, he’s someone who alleviates his stress, but also someone who sets his heart all aflutter.

here, post-graduation, ichinose is lingering. even though he sees the rain and knows he needs to be heading home, he still offers to help the dorm manager out. and while I’m sure they’ve had many pleasant and comfortable conversations during ichinose’s tenure as a dorm head, and outside of that, too, it’s nice to see him so chill. at this moment, he’s, for some reason or the other, decided to stick around at a place he’s kind of supposed to have moved past already. the optimist in me likes to think he’s trying to focus on himself a little more, but considering all my statements about ichinose are still filtered through a mountain of my own speculation and headcanons about his three years of high school… you might have to take my words with a grain of salt.

ahem. ichinose spiel over (for now). I just wanted to express some of my thoughts on him as a character because he’s got a pretty important appearance later in this chapter, but I’m very indulgent about it.

next we have kagiura & hirano on the chapter cover! kagi posing as the dog in this photo is almost… too obvious to talk about? it’s a fun hint to what’s to come, for certain. but it’s also just… that boy is so dog / puppy-coded. that stuffed animal gift that he got jealous of. his phone charm. it’s almost too obvious to talk about. as for the pose and expressions themselves, I think they’re so cute. it’s important to note how freely delighted hirano is, here, as he’s touching kagiura’s hands… he enjoys this kind of carefree, loving treatment! and we are, in fact, going to see him enjoy something just like this very soon!

now. onto our hug sequence. I think this whole scene is so fun, so I’m going to try to break it down into more elemental parts and analyze what’s going on here. overall, this hug and the response to it are hirano and kagiura doing their best to communicate with each other. these two are really sensitive to each other, and my favorite thing about this scene is the way that hirano and kagiura respond to the other, because they’re always considering each other’s feelings. they’re not two characters who align by magic—instead they do their best to convey their feelings and match each other, because they want to stay together. in ch 15 of hirano to kagiura, even when they’re so very clearly not having the same kinds of thoughts, they turn to face each other at the exact same moment, because they’re always thinking of each other. I love them to pieces.

to begin with: let’s discuss heights! in the beginning of this situation, hirano is sitting while kagiura stands. this arrangement, with kagiura above him, adds a fun tension to the scene. it’s not like kagiura’s, I dunno, this oppressive force, or anything? it’s just that hirano, looking up, looks a little diminished. in general, harusono loves to play with heights between these two. like, kagiura, just by default, is taller than hirano, but there’s so many different scenes you can point to him where hirano is above him in some form or the other. i’d have to catalogue all of these appearances to figure out if there’s any throughline… maybe hirano likes having kagiura under him? who’s to say, since I haven’t gone through everything yet. harusono might just like to flip around the height framing a lot. but it’s something fun to take note of.

kagiura asks if he can embrace him, and says it’s something that lovers would do. this idea—of being Like Lovers—is something that’s plagued hirano for the entirety of the manga. what does it really mean, to be lovers? it’s normal, to want to kiss a lover. what does normal mean?

this is why I love to headcanon hirano as some variety of aspec. when I think about asexuality and aromanticism, questions like these come to the forefront. what separates love from like? and, taking the chapter title (“it’s just like a treasure”) into account: what does it mean for hirano and kagiura to treasure each other?

from day one, it’s clear as day that these two love each other. right now, the disconnect between them exists because kagiura wants a relationship that is Like Lovers, and hirano feels like he doesn’t know how to match that. I think there’s a lot of things that we think of as “normal” or “expected” for relationships, but ultimately every relationship is about the people involved in it. for hirano, some of what is standard for Like Lovers might not be true to him, and I’m excited to see kagiura and him work through that. there’s a lot of ways it could go, and I have a couple of different things I want to happen… part of me wonders if hirano would better conceptualize being Like Lovers as a wanting to be family. that sense of domestic married bliss, you know? (“when I get married, I sure hope it’s to someone as open and honest as you!” — ch 18.5, sasaki to miyano)

in this chapter, we get to see hirano and kagiura be more unconventional, and personal, about the way they express their love for each other. for now, though, I think hirano still reacts intensely to the idea of acting Like Lovers, because he hasn’t yet come to a proper conclusion about it. in ch 25, hirano invites kagiura to touch his hair, and then gets confused when kagiura says it’s something Like Lovers. that wasn’t what he’d intended by it, after all. then he hears that wanting to kiss someone, too, is Like Lovers, which isn’t something he’s ever actively thought about. if the way he interacts with kagiura is both Like Lovers and Unlike, how does that explain his own actions? how does that explain himself? in ch 6, after hearing that kagiura wants to marry hirano be family with him, like his parents, niibashi asks, “do you want to kiss him?” it’s a question that asks whether what kagiura feels for hirano is really romantic love. like niibashi says later, maybe hirano’s just going through all of these stages. maybe one day he’ll wake up and understand everything. But hirano’s not the type to wait around for things like that. instead, hirano wants to consider this relationship, as it exists now, as seriously as possible.

(side note: while I do think hirano’s going through the stages of falling in love, I think the way he approaches it and responds to it is pretty different, compared to kagiura. I’m kind of curious to see whether he’ll have his own do you want to kiss him? moment, considering he actually does consider it himself in ch 25 before going to sleep and avoiding the question. on a personal level I’d like him to match kagi without entirely mirroring him, just because I think it makes sense for them)

that level of consideration that hirano has towards kagiura, and his struggles to really Get what is meant by Like Lovers makes him hesitant. I think this is what motivates him to ask, “can… I say… I don’t want to?”

immediately, kagiura steps back in surprise. it’s not a melodramatic move—it’s just his instinctual, reflexive response to hirano expressing some level of discomfort. at this, hirano exhales, and some of the tension deflates. this response is why hirano decides to go for the hugging after all. it’s not just because he knows that he can say no, it’s because it’s just so clear that kagi treasures him.

I also think that his initial half-refusal, and then his acceptance, make hirano feel like he’s taking a bit more initiative in the situation, which is certainly something he wants. in the same way that kagiura wants more of an equal footing with hirano, when it comes to their relationship I think hirano doesn’t want kagi to be putting in effort all my himself. they’re in a mutualistic relationship—each wants to benefit the other.

so then we get the hug, and The Moment—that bit of discomfort! again: immediately, kagiura shifts his position, and moves his hands up to squeeze hirano into a hug that looks a bit fluffier and less intimate than the last. it’s such a brilliant response from kagiura—it’s likely motivated in part by the fact that he still wants to hug hirano, but I also think a simple shift of positions is much less awkward then flinching away. though hirano’s clearly a little distressed by his own reaction, this hug is clearly not causing him any kind of physical discomfort. and kagiura probably knew this would be the case, since he actually hugs hirano quite similarly in ch 20 of hirano to kagiura. hirano, actually, has an interestingly similar set of expressions on his face then.

hirano’s thoughts during this part of the hug are so interesting. he knows he likes kagi as person… so what does that Like mean, compared against Like Lovers? this is a question I’m always asking myself, too. because he’s good with holding hands, which is pretty Like Lovers. and that time when he patted kagiura’s head… that made both of them happy. a mutual, shared joy. that’s what hirano wants.

when he exits that hug, it doesn’t feel like he can offer that. kagiura tentatively asks him how it was and hirano thinks, it’s not like I want you to make that face. this is what I mean by sensitivity—hirano just wants kagiura to look happy when they touch, to the point that he gets mad when kagiura doesn’t look happy (ch 23b, hirano to kagiura). he’s meant to enjoy this, and how is hirano going to enjoy it if kagi doesn’t look like he’s enjoying it, either?

my favorite part of this moment is that though hirano is considering his words carefully, he also refuses to be anything but truthful. so he considers the situation deeply, going through everything they’ve tried before, trying to isolate the variable. the fact that he recalls each moment so well tells us how meaningful his interactions with kagi are, too. once hirano figures out that the variable is initiative, he tells kagi, clear and direct: I don’t really like being hugged. so why don’t I hug you, instead. that blunt, bright honesty, that willingness to face kagi properly… it dazzles me. I’m sure kagi’s dazzled by it, too.

and the hug is good. hirano, now that the height differences have been reversed, gets to apply things he knows that he likes… patting kagi’s head, for example. I’m so in love with the expression he makes when he sees kagi, blushing all lovely-like in his arms… it looks like he’s been enchanted. sure, as kagiura says, what they’re doing right now isn’t traditionally Like Lovers. but what’s happening here is something that works for them.

I don’t believe in love languages with any kind of seriousness, since they fall into that same pop psychology category of like… MBTI and Enneagrams to me. But I think the underlying concept—of loving someone in a way they understand—is important. so here, even though it’s not really Like Lovers, it’s intimate in a way that works for them—hirano’s comfortable, and kagi is blushing so hard that he’s clearly feeling some kind of way about it. crucially, he also says that he’s happy. they are both trying to treasure each other, and they know this.

kagi getting jealous of a dog that hirano literally hasn’t gotten is also super cute. reminds me of when he got jealous of that stuffed animal he gave him. I think it also makes the chapter cover super cute, since kagi’s playacting as a dog there. most importantly, this comment makes hirano laugh, so they break from this embrace without tension, except for—

well. hirano sees ichinose, who sees them. what a blank, open stare… his expression is so tantalizingly unreadable here. from what I can tell, though, ichinose’s natural instinct, here, is to back away. I genuinely think he was just planning to leave them alone and skedaddle. maybe they’d talk about it later. but then, when he’s about to leave, he spots hanzawa. according to hanzawa’s reputation, he would definitely not approve of what’s going on here, and ichinose just immediately starts covering for them. he loudly announces hanzawa’s presence while pretending he didn’t see them, so kagiura doesn’t realize they’ve been spotted, but also so they can collect themselves before hanzawa sees them in any kind of compromising position.

it’s such a considerate and subtle way of acting… you can really tell why he was dorm head, here. and this actually isn’t the first time ichinose has intervened for the both of them. in ch 20, he cuts in when hirano grabs kagiura’s collar, and we specifically see that there’s a couple students who are looking at the two of them and wondering if there’s a fight going on. ichinose rushes in, is like, oh wow you’ve hurt your hand! go to the nurse’s office, now! and lets them talk things out calmly and privately. like I said last chapter, he’s a guy who’s aware of public perception. not all of my ichinose thoughts are entirely speculation.

hanzawa presenting this sort of like… scare, though, is quite interesting. the worlds of sasaki to miyano and hirano to kagiura are pretty… light on homophobia, as far as things go? it’s definitely real and present, but the struggles that our main characters face don’t involve crazy drama, or feeling like the entire world is out to persecute them. so hanzawa, who I think gets touchy about people “acting gay” because he’s aware of how tough it is to deal with discrimination, almost acts as a filter / barrier between the wider world and the world of the manga. we get a touch of that wider world stuff from him and his attitude, but we don’t actually get the wider world homophobia.

I think hanzawa’s strict about relationships because he’s seen them not end well, and probably feels that on a risk level, it’s not worth it. better to shut it down early. better to make things look normal, because it’s safer. on a personal level, when both of his brothers came out as gay and hanzawa awkwardly said he just liked girls, his mother stated that everything was alright because hanzawa was there to carry on the family line. in a certain sense, I’d bet that hanzawa thinks of himself as a filter / barrier in that situation, too. since he’s there, his parents remain fully accepting of his brothers. whether that would change with hanzawa being queer or not, we don’t know for certain, but I do think that’s hanzawa’s fears surrounding the situation… what would happen to him, if he was less normal? there’s a reason that hanzawa has the most piercings of the cast, has dyed hair, and still reads as a smart and studious upperclassman. he’s careful about his image.

I’m interested to see what happens with hanzawa, here. seeing sasaki and miyano clearly makes him feel a little more hopeful about gay relationships, and even though we see hanzawa express concern when first seeing sasaki and miyano together, none of that concern is ever directly conveyed to miyano. he’s filtering himself, because he knows that it’s probably not right to intervene, here.

to tie off my thoughts on this chapter, I’m really interested in the ichinose-hanzawa exchange about using the study rooms in the dorm, versus hanging out in the dorm manager’s room. because what ichinose is doing right now… it’s a bit unconventional, isn’t it? but he brings up his justification easily—can’t study in the study rooms that are for the actual dorm residents, since he’s no longer paying for the dorm. there might be a bit of truth in that, but to me he’s walking a careful line, trying not to be too obvious of what other feelings might be motivating him, here. right at the end of the chapter, he spills the fabric softener. it might have just been a routine error. it might also be that he’s a little more nervous than he’s letting on…